Oct. 11, 2012

Written by

B.C. Kowalski

Gannett Central Wisconsin Media

Research at the library now includes both traditional and electronic forms so materials also must reflect those uses. / B.C. Kowalski/Gannett Wisconsin Media

Portage County Public Library

Address: 1001 Main St., Stevens Point Phone: 715-346-1544 Established: 1904 Top executive: Bob Stack, director Number of employees: 46 Description: The Portage County Public Library grew from a small lending library in White School on Water Street in 1862. Several incarnations later, it stands in the heart of downtown on Main Street where it still lends books, along with access to ebooks, movies, Nintendo DS games, Internet access and more.

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STEVENS POINT — Many might think the library is just a place with a bunch of old, dusty books.

Not in this day and age.

The Portage County Public Library in downtown Stevens Point offers a variety of services, including everything from ebook downloads to Nintendo DS games and MP3 players.

Portage County Public Library Director Bob Stack said new technologies mean libraries are changing to meet technological innovations.

“We’re in challenging times,” Stack said.

Stack points to Morning Star, an investment news source, is now only online. The library is in the process of making the publication available to its visitors via a tablet they can check out.

“The challenge there is the increase in infrastructure costs to have tablets in order to do things like that,” said reference and technical support librarian Charles Danner. “The challenge is going to be for the public to work in the new paradigm, that everything is going to online or tablet.”

The library has three tablets it can lend to users, and that’s just one of the ways the library is offering new technology.

“The library certainly still has books,” Assistant Director Deb McCabe said. “But we also have downloadable books, ebooks, subscriptions to a lot of databases and jobs databases.”

Another way the library has had to innovate is helping people find employment because many are searching and applying online.

And not everyone is up to speed.

“You’d be surprised at how many people come in who are not computer savvy,” Stack said. “But we’ve had a lot of successes.”

Maybe one of the more fundamental ways in which the library is changing is with the books themselves. McCabe said the move to ebooks, which can be downloaded from the library, is ongoing and something the library still is struggling with the keep up with the demand and the multitude of devices users read them on.

The subscriptions the library buys only allows so many copies of an ebook to be checked out at a time, which means higher demand costs the library more money.

Danner said about 2 percent of the library’s book check-outs are ebooks, but that number is expected to grow.

But librarians think that while the ebook will become more prevalent, there will always be room for physical books.

“In the sense of books, there is a change, but I talk to a lot of people, they like the tactile feel of the book,” Stack said. “There’s a place for e-readers, they are in some ways more convenient.”